IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0147663.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing Progress towards Public Health, Human Rights, and International Development Goals Using Frontier Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Jeanne Luh
  • Ryan Cronk
  • Jamie Bartram

Abstract

Indicators to measure progress towards achieving public health, human rights, and international development targets, such as 100% access to improved drinking water or zero maternal mortality ratio, generally focus on status (i.e., level of attainment or coverage) or trends in status (i.e., rates of change). However, these indicators do not account for different levels of development that countries experience, thus making it difficult to compare progress between countries. We describe a recently developed new use of frontier analysis and apply this method to calculate country performance indices in three areas: maternal mortality ratio, poverty headcount ratio, and primary school completion rate. Frontier analysis is used to identify the maximum achievable rates of change, defined by the historically best-performing countries, as a function of coverage level. Performance indices are calculated by comparing a country’s rate of change against the maximum achievable rate at the same coverage level. A country’s performance can be positive or negative, corresponding to progression or regression, respectively. The calculated performance indices allow countries to be compared against each other regardless of whether they have only begun to make progress or whether they have almost achieved the target. This paper is the first to use frontier analysis to determine the maximum achievable rates as a function of coverage level and to calculate performance indices for public health, human rights, and international development indicators. The method can be applied to multiple fields and settings, for example health targets such as cessation in smoking or specific vaccine immunizations, and offers both a new approach to analyze existing data and a new data source for consideration when assessing progress achieved.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeanne Luh & Ryan Cronk & Jamie Bartram, 2016. "Assessing Progress towards Public Health, Human Rights, and International Development Goals Using Frontier Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0147663
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147663
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147663
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147663&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0147663?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2015. "World Development Indicators 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21634.
    2. Joe Zhu, 2014. "Data Envelopment Analysis," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Quantitative Models for Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking, edition 3, chapter 1, pages 1-9, Springer.
    3. Wilson, Paul W, 1993. "Detecting Outliers in Deterministic Nonparametric Frontier Models with Multiple Outputs," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 11(3), pages 319-323, July.
    4. Cook, Wade D. & Tone, Kaoru & Zhu, Joe, 2014. "Data envelopment analysis: Prior to choosing a model," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-4.
    5. Seiford, Lawrence M. & Thrall, Robert M., 1990. "Recent developments in DEA : The mathematical programming approach to frontier analysis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 7-38.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hainan Guo & Yang Zhao & Tie Niu & Kwok-Leung Tsui, 2017. "Hong Kong Hospital Authority resource efficiency evaluation: Via a novel DEA-Malmquist model and Tobit regression model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(9), pages 1-24, September.
    2. Stefanie Schwemlein & Ryan Cronk & Jamie Bartram, 2016. "Indicators for Monitoring Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene: A Systematic Review of Indicator Selection Methods," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Silvia Saravia-Matus & T. S. Amjath-Babu & Sreejith Aravindakshan & Stefan Sieber & Jimmy A. Saravia & Sergio Gomez y Paloma, 2021. "Can Enhancing Efficiency Promote the Economic Viability of Smallholder Farmers? A Case of Sierra Leone," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, April.
    2. Andreas Eder & Bernhard Mahlberg, 2018. "Size, Subsidies and Technical Efficiency in Renewable Energy Production: The Case of Austrian Biogas Plants," The Energy Journal, , vol. 39(1), pages 185-210, January.
    3. Sreejith Aravindakshan & Frederick Rossi & T. S. Amjath-Babu & Prakashan Chellattan Veettil & Timothy J. Krupnik, 2018. "Application of a bias-corrected meta-frontier approach and an endogenous switching regression to analyze the technical efficiency of conservation tillage for wheat in South Asia," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 153-171, June.
    4. Chowdhury, Hedayet & Zelenyuk, Valentin, 2016. "Performance of hospital services in Ontario: DEA with truncated regression approach," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 111-122.
    5. Halkos, George & Petrou, Kleoniki Natalia, 2018. "Assessment of national waste generation in EU Member States’ efficiency," MPRA Paper 84590, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Akbari, Negar & Jones, Dylan & Treloar, Richard, 2020. "A cross-European efficiency assessment of offshore wind farms: A DEA approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 1186-1195.
    7. Victor V. Podinovski & Tatiana Bouzdine-Chameeva, 2021. "Optimal solutions of multiplier DEA models," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 45-68, August.
    8. Liu, John S. & Lu, Louis Y.Y. & Lu, Wen-Min, 2016. "Research fronts in data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 33-45.
    9. Vincent Charles & Ioannis E. Tsolas & Tatiana Gherman, 2018. "Satisficing data envelopment analysis: a Bayesian approach for peer mining in the banking sector," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 269(1), pages 81-102, October.
    10. Carlucci, Fabio & Corcione, Carlo & Mazzocchi, Paolo & Trincone, Barbara, 2021. "The role of logistics in promoting Italian agribusiness: The Belt and Road Initiative case study," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    11. Yande Gong & Joe Zhu & Ya Chen & Wade D. Cook, 2018. "DEA as a tool for auditing: application to Chinese manufacturing industry with parallel network structures," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 263(1), pages 247-269, April.
    12. Quintano, Claudio & Mazzocchi, Paolo & Rocca, Antonella, 2021. "Evaluation of the eco-efficiency of territorial districts with seaport economic activities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    13. Yash Daultani & Ashish Dwivedi & Saurabh Pratap, 2021. "Benchmarking higher education institutes using data envelopment analysis: capturing perceptions of prospective engineering students," OPSEARCH, Springer;Operational Research Society of India, vol. 58(4), pages 773-789, December.
    14. Khushalani, Jaya & Ozcan, Yasar A., 2017. "Are hospitals producing quality care efficiently? An analysis using Dynamic Network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 15-23.
    15. Ying Li & Yung-Ho Chiu & Tai-Yu Lin & Tzu-Han Chang, 2020. "Pre-Evaluating the Technical Efficiency Gains from Potential Mergers and Acquisitions in the IC Design Industry," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 19(02), pages 525-559, April.
    16. Daysi Sanmartín-Durango & Maria Alejandra Henao-Bedoya & Yair Tadeo Valencia-Estupiñan & Jairo Humberto Restrepo-Zea, 2019. "Efficiency of health expenditure in the OECD and LAC: a data envelopment analysis," Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, Departamento de Economía, issue 91, pages 41-78, Julio - D.
    17. Amar Oukil & Slim Zekri, 2021. "Investigating farming efficiency through a two stage analytical approach: Application to the agricultural sector in Northern Oman," Papers 2104.10943, arXiv.org.
    18. Ane Elixabete Ripoll-Zarraga & Sebastián Lozano, 2020. "A centralised DEA approach to resource reallocation in Spanish airports," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 288(2), pages 701-732, May.
    19. Huang, Beijia & Zhang, Long & Ma, Linmao & Bai, Wuliyasu & Ren, Jingzheng, 2021. "Multi-criteria decision analysis of China’s energy security from 2008 to 2017 based on Fuzzy BWM-DEA-AR model and Malmquist Productivity Index," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    20. Olawale Ogunrinde & Ekundayo Shittu, 2023. "Benchmarking performance of photovoltaic power plants in multiple periods," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 489-503, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0147663. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.